28 Then they led Jesus from Caiaphas into the Praetorium, and it was early; and they themselves did not enter into the Praetorium so that they would not be defiled, but might eat the Passover.
What is missing in John’s account is his questioning before Caiaphas. But Matthew fills in the blank and it is a very important blank. It explains Caiaphas’ verdict and the agreement of the other scribes and elders who had gathered for this unlawful trial.
63 Jesus remained silent. And the high priest said to him, “I adjure you by the living God, tell us if you are the Christ, the Son of God.” 64 Jesus said to him, “You have said so. But I tell you, from now on you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of Power and coming on the clouds of heaven.” 65 Then the high priest tore his robes and said, “He has uttered blasphemy. What further witnesses do we need? You have now heard his blasphemy. 66 What is your judgment?” They answered, “He deserves death.” (Matt 26:63-66 ESV)
Because the Jewish authorities didn’t have the authority to execute anyone, they had to go to the Roman government. It is highly unlikely that the Roman government would call for the execution of someone who claims to be the Son of God. After all, they had many gods and the Ceasars claimed the same thing. But Pilate is the Roman representative. His verdict is very important when we look to Jesus as our sinless Savior.
But before we examine the trial, the hypocrisy of the Jewish leaders is made even more evident. They had a strict rule that they could not enter the house of a Gentile, or they would be ceremonially defiled or made unclean. When they were unclean, they would be prevented from eating the Passover meal. In Numbers 9:1-14, the Lord gave instructions about eating the Passover and anyone who was unclean would have to wait until the next month to eat the Passover. The primary reason for being unclean in this passage was by touching a dead body. So here is the hypocrisy in that they have unlawfully condemned Jesus to death but don’t consider that a matter of making them unclean. Jesus had clarified to the Pharisees what makes someone unclean, “But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this defiles a person. 19 For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander. 20 These are what defile a person” (Matt 15:18-20).
We fall into the same trap as the Pharisees and the chief priests. We are often more concerned with our external actions to make us acceptable to God that we fail to understand that in our hearts are all sorts of evils. We may even be very good at keeping the verbal uncleanness from coming out, but those evil thoughts are hiding in our hearts. Only when we depend on the power of the Holy Spirit are we able to overcome our sinful heart.
29 Therefore Pilate went out to them and said, "What accusation do you bring against this Man?" 30 They answered and said to him, "If this Man were not an evildoer, we would not have delivered Him to you."
In keeping with their hypocrisy, the Jews don’t want to tell Pilate the real reason why they are bringing Jesus to him. Instead, they offer a poor claim that he is simply an evildoer. What does that mean anyway? Pilate would have to be really dense to accept that flimsy accusation. Indeed, he is no pushover. The irony in this is that those who had violated all that they held sacred had just called the one who is sinless to be one who practiced evil.
31 So Pilate said to them, "Take Him yourselves, and judge Him according to your law." The Jews said to him, "We are not permitted to put anyone to death," 32 to fulfill the word of Jesus which He spoke, signifying by what kind of death He was about to die.
When Pilat pushes back on the Jews, they reveal that they have already judged Jesus and they want the death penalty. If they had been able to inflict the death penalty on Jesus, it would have been stoning. But stoning would not have fulfilled not only Jesus’ prophecies but Old Testament prophesies.
Jesus proclaimed that he would be condemned, crucifixion, and resurrected:
18 See, we are going up to Jerusalem. And the Son of Man will be delivered over to the chief priests and scribes, and they will condemn him to death 19 and deliver him over to the Gentiles to be mocked and flogged and crucified, and he will be raised on the third day. (Matt 20:18-19 ESV)
He also told of his crucifixion in Matthew 26:2 and John 3:14, 12:32. If Jesus would have been killed in any other way, it would not fit the prophecies of the Old Testament which graphically described his crucifixion in Psalm 22:14-18 and Isiah 53, which we’ll look at more when we look at his crucifixion.
You may wonder why it was important for Jesus to be crucified. The main reason is that Deuteronomy 21:23 says, “For a hanged man is cursed by God” (ESV). Paul explains it in Galatians 3:13, “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us” (ESV). Had he died any other way, he would not have become a curse. In addition, Jesus had to bleed as a sacrifice for our sins. In the same way that the lambs were killed and their blood drained, so Jesus had to die a bloody death.
33 Therefore Pilate entered again into the Praetorium, and summoned Jesus and said to Him, "Are You the King of the Jews?" 34 Jesus answered, "Are you saying this on your own initiative, or did others tell you about Me?"
Pilate’s question of Jesus should take us back to Matthew 2:2 when the magi came to the current king of the Jews and asked him where the newborn King of the Jews was. Indeed, Jesus is the King of the Jews but also the King of all kings. This was not the same question that the Jews had asked Jesus during his trial. I wonder if Jesus would have answered them as he had mostly remained silent at their questioning.
Jesus does answer Pilate, but he asks a question. This is the answer we need to answer about who Jesus is. When we say Jesus is our Lord, are we saying it for ourselves or are we saying it because other say he is Lord? When we consider Jesus, we must answer for ourselves. We can’t depend on what others say.
35 Pilate answered, "I am not a Jew, am I? Your own nation and the chief priests delivered You to me; what have You done?"
I can read into this, the scorn of Pilate’s reply. He was known for doing what he could to insult the Jewish population by introducing worship images of the emperor in Jerusalem. He was a notoriously cruel man who ruled so harshly that he had to return to Rome to stand trial for his cruelty and oppression.[1] If his response didn’t show enough contempt, then pointing out that Jesus’ own people wanted him dead was a direct dig against both Jews and Jesus.
36 Jesus answered, "My kingdom is not of this world. If My kingdom were of this world, then My servants would be fighting so that I would not be handed over to the Jews; but as it is, My kingdom is not of this realm."
Jesus is much more forthcoming with Pilate than he is with some of his own disciples. He worked for three years with many disciples and with the twelve and yet we don’t have Jesus telling them that his kingdom wasn’t of this world. Even up to his crucifixion, some still believed that his kingdom was the nation of Israel and that he would usher in the Messianic age where Israel would rule the world.
Jesus’ answer clarifies some of his earlier statements. He told parables and explained the kingdom of heaven in thirty-one verses and the kingdom of God in another fifty verses. Yet, in all of these he didn’t ever say so clearly that his kingdom was not of this realm. Even in the multitude of these passages he says the kingdom is near or has come upon his listeners. You would think that his references to the kingdom of heaven would have clued people into the fact that his kingdom isn’t of this world.
Yet how many of us currently understand Jesus’ kingdom. We affirm that he is King of kings and Lord of lords, but we don’t see it. We get all bent out of shape when the political systems of this world don’t conform to what we would expect of Jesus’ rule. We sometimes think that Jesus’ servants must be fighting physically for him. We don’t understand 2 Corinthians 10:3, “For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does” (NIV). We can only understand the kingdom of God if we have a solid faith in God’s sovereignty.
37 Therefore Pilate said to Him, "So You are a king?" Jesus answered, "You say correctly that I am a king. For this I have been born, and for this I have come into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth hears My voice."
Pilate affirms that Jesus is a king even though it is stated as a question. At this point, I believe that Pilate really does believe it. You must remember that Romans had many gods, and it is possible that he sees Jesus only as a king in some other reality. But Jesus understood his affirmation and added to his understanding. As a good evangelist, Jesus pushes another step closer to getting Pilate to understand who he is.
We often state that Jesus came into the world to live a sinless life and die to take our sins so we can have his perfect life. But he tells Pilate that he came to tell about the truth. His challenge to Pilate is to listen to him if he is of the truth. This is a clear indication that not everyone will be saved, but only those who hear Jesus. When they hear, it isn’t just registering affirmation about who Jesus is, but it is those who have been called because they are of the truth.
Jesus said essentially the same thing when he said he had other sheep who would listen to his voice (John 10:16). Because even Gentiles belong to Jesus and are his sheep they are included when Jesus says his sheep know his voice (John 10:27).
38 Pilate said to Him, "What is truth?" And when he had said this, he went out again to the Jews and said to them, "I find no guilt in Him.
It is obvious that Pilate wasn’t willing to engage anymore with Jesus. His sarcastic remark echoes down the centuries as philosophers as well as religious people grapple with truth. Today, we have come to the apex of questioning truth. It is so bad that everyone defines truth as what it means to themselves. They put their own reasoning at the center of deciding what truth is. They are fulfilling Proverbs 28:26, “Whoever trusts in his own mind is a fool, but he who walks in wisdom will be delivered.” Of course, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.
Pilate didn’t care about ultimate truth, but he was still following God’s plan for him. He had no idea that his pronouncement that Jesus had no guilt was prophetic, he was speaking God’s word just as surely as Caiaphas prophesied that Jesus would die for the nation (John 11:49-52). Pilate represented the whole Gentile world as the high priest represented the whole of Israel. This contrast between Pilate’s declaration of Jesus’ innocence and the Jewish leaders’ declaration of his guilt showed how far the Jewish system had deteriorated from God’s standard.
39 "But you have a custom that I release someone for you at the Passover; do you wish then that I release for you the King of the Jews?" 40 So they cried out again, saying, "Not this Man, but Barabbas." Now Barabbas was a robber.
Pilate isn’t done rubbing Jesus in the Jewish leaders’ noses. He offers them a compromise by releasing Jesus according to their custom. But in calling Jesus the King of the Jews, he insured that they would not take the offer. Pilate wasn’t truly trying to release Jesus because he knew he was innocent, but it appears that he was simply trying to save his own skin should Rome hear of his condemning an innocent man. He knew how badly the Jews wanted Jesus dead and that a riot would erupt if he didn’t do it. What is worse? Kill one man or have a riot and end up using force to stop it? Pilate chose the easy way out. That’s what we often do. We take the easy way out instead of standing up for truth.
But the sin of the leaders is evident in that they were willing to let a robber go rather than let Jesus go, who had done nothing wrong. Luke calls Barabbas an insurrectionist and a murderer (Luke 23:19). Matthew called him notorious (Matt 27:16). This just emphasizes that only God could orchestrate Jesus’ condemnation by having both the Jewish leaders and the Romans agree to have such a scoundrel released.
If we look only at Jesus’ trial from a human standpoint, we see the unthinkable happening. But when we view it from God’s viewpoint. It must be. “This Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men” (Acts 2:23). Both the Jews and Gentiles are guilty in condemning Jesus. But it was God’s plan.
[1] 1. “Pontius Pilate,” Encyclopædia Britannica, August 7, 2023, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Pontius-Pilate.
